Jacky Pearson was born in England in 1958 and moved with her family to New Zealand in 1991. She had loved drawing and painting from an early age, but her career began elsewhere — in soil conservation and environmental work, and later helping run a renewable energy business with her husband. Largely self-taught, she developed her craft over the years by attending workshops with some of the world's leading watercolour artists, before eventually turning to painting full time.

Now based in Carterton, in New Zealand's Wairarapa region, Jacky works primarily in watercolour, drawn to the medium's spontaneity and the way it captures fleeting, unrepeatable moments of light and atmosphere. Her style is one of direct realism, painted both en plein air and in the studio, though she also works in oils and charcoal. Her love of the natural landscape — rooted in her earlier career in environmental science — remains a constant thread through her work.

Jacky's paintings have represented New Zealand on the international stage, including at the Biennial International Watercolour Exhibition in Mexico City, where her painting "Courtney Place" was selected for the permanent collection of the International Museum of Watercolours. She has also exhibited at the International Watercolour Exhibition in Moscow (2021) and received a merit award from the International Watercolour Masters Society (2022). Her many other honours include the Raye Hannan Memorial Trophy and Gold Medal at Auckland's Royal Easter Show, overall winner of the national Wai-Portrait Awards, and the public-vote award for Best in Show at the Rotary Southwards art show. Her work is held in public collections including those of the Auckland and Wellington City Councils, as well as in private collections around the world.

Among her best-known projects is *Lighthouses of New Zealand*, a series documenting the country's classic coastal lighthouses, researched in collaboration with Archives New Zealand, Maritime New Zealand and local lighthouse keepers. The project became a popular calendar series and later a sell-out solo exhibition of forty paintings.

An experienced international tutor, Jacky holds regular classes, workshops and masterclasses throughout New Zealand and overseas, teaching both in person and via Zoom. She is frequently invited to judge art competitions at local and national level, and is a member of Watercolour New Zealand, the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, and the Hutt and Masterton Art Societies. In 2012 she was one of three artists invited by Watercolour New Zealand to demonstrate en plein air painting to then-Prince Charles on the Wellington waterfront, at his own request for his 65th birthday. Her work has also been featured on the Australian television series *Colour in Your Life*.

Jacky's paintings and demonstrations have appeared in numerous international art books, magazines and calendars. She is the author of *Little Book of Watercolour Secrets*, and continues to develop further tuition books, teaching videos and painting aids for students around the world.